HD117

And Democratic women aren’t leaving the men of their own party undisturbed. In Minnesota, former FBI analyst Leah Phifer is challenging incumbent Democratic representative Rick Nolan; Sameena Mustafa, a tenant advocate and founder of the comedy troupe Simmer Brown, is primarying Democrat Mike Quigley in Illinois’s Fifth District. And Chelsea Manning, former Army intelligence analyst and whistle-blower, announced recently that she’s going after Ben Cardin, the 74-year-old who has held one of Maryland’s Senate seats for 11 years and served in the House for 20 years before that.

While the vision of women storming the ramparts of government is radical from one vantage point, from others it’s as American as the idea of representative democracy laid out by our forefathers (like Great-great-great-great-grandpa Frelinghuysen!). “Representative citizens coming from all parts of the nation, cobblers and farmers — that was what was intended by the founders,” says Marie Newman, a former small-business owner and anti-bullying advocate who is challenging Illinois Democrat Dan Lipinski in a primary. “You come to the House for a while and bring your ideas and then you probably go back to your life.” Not only has her opponent been in office for 13 years, Newman notes, but his father held the same seat for 20 years before that. “It’s a family that has reigned supreme, like a monarchy, for over 30 years,” she says.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton, Newman and the rest of this girl gang are eyeing the aging cast of men (and a few women) who’ve hogged the political stage forever and trying to replace them. Replacement. It’s an alluring concept, striking fear in the hearts of the guys who’ve been running the place — recall that the white supremacists in Charlottesville this summer chanted “You will not replace us” — and stirring hope in the rest of us that a redistribution of power might be possible.

So naturally that made me wonder about what the situation was in Texas. For Congress, there are eleven Democrats from Texas, nine men and two women. Two men are not running for re-election, and in each case the most likely successor is a woman. Of the seven men running for re-election, only one (Marc Veasey) has a primary opponent, another man. Both female members of Congress have primary opponents – Sheila Jackson Lee has a male challenger, Eddie Bernice Johnson has a man and a woman running against her. That woman is Barbara Mallory Caroway, who is on something like her third campaign against EBJ. Basically, nothing much of interest here.

Where it is interesting is at the legislative level. Here are all the Democratic incumbents who face primary challengers, sorted into appropriate groups.

Guillen’s opponent Garza is a district court judge. He was one of the Dems who voted for the anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment back in 2005. I’d like to know both of their positions on LGBT equality. Speaking of which, Jessica Gonzalez is among the many LGBT candidates on the ballot this year. Note that Alonzo was on the right side of that vote in 2005, FWIW. Crenshaw appears to be a former member of Dallas City Council who ran for HD110 in 2014. There’s an interestingstory to go along with that, which I’ll let you discover on your own. Cortez was first elected in 2012, winning the nomination over a candidate who had been backed by Annie’s List, and he drew some ire from female activists for some of his activity during that campaign. I have no idea how things stand with him today, but I figured I’d mention that bit of backstory.

We know about Reps. Reynolds and Dukes. Bates and Owens represent rematches – Bates was in the 2016 primary, while Owens competed unsuccessfully in the precinct chair process for HD146, then ran as a write-in that November, getting a bit less than 3% of the vote. Alonzo and Bonton look like interesting candidates, but by far the hottest race here is in HD116, where TMF is seeking a return engagement to the Lege, and a lot of his former colleagues are there for him. I imagine things could be a bit awkward if Rep. Arevalo hangs on. Anyway, I don’t know that there are any lessons to be learned from this, I just wanted to document it.

Here are the legislative races I’ll be looking at to see what kind of a day it has been for Texas Democrats. After the 2012 general election, the Dems had 55 seats in the Lege. Thee Democrats lost in 2014, lowering that total to 52. As things stand right now, Dems are at 50 seats, with one seat being lost early this year in a special election, and another later on to an independent in a special election that basically no one paid any attention to. I’m going to group the races into four tiers with decreasing levels of likelihood and expectation, and we’ll see where we might wind up.

HDs 117 and 144 were the seats lost in 2014 (along with HD23, which is in a different category). HDs 118 (Farias) and 120 (McClendon) had specials due to the early retirement of their Dem incumbents. Note that Mary Ann Perez won HD144 in 2012 by 6.5 points over a stronger Republican opponent than the accidental incumbent she faces now. Phillip Cortez, running to reclaim HD117 after losing it in 2014, defeated a 2010-wave Republican by nearly eight points in 2012. I expect all four to be won by Democrats on Tuesday, which puts the caucus at 54.

These are the white whales for Texas Democrats in recent elections. HD43 is home of the turncoat JM Lozano, who switched parties after the 2010 wipeout after having won a Democratic primary against an ethically-challenged incumbent in March. Now-former Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, who lost a primary in HD105 in 2014 to Rep. Rodney Anderson, had two of the closest victories in recent years, hanging on in 2008 by twenty votes and in 2012 by fewer than 800 votes. Similarly, Rep. Kenneth Sheets won in 2012 by 850 votes. The map designers in 2011 did a great job of keeping eight out of 14 districts in strongly Democratic Dallas County just red enough to win so far. I have to feel like this is the year their luck runs out. I’ll be disappointed if Dems don’t win at least two of these races, so let’s put the caucus at 56.

That’s most of the rest of Dallas County, the seat held by former Rep. Craig Eiland till he retired before the 2014 election, Rep. Sarah Davis’ perennial swing seat, and the Killeen-based district now held by the retiring Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock. It’s this last one that I think is most likely to flip; there were a few maps drawn during the 2011 session that made this a fairly solid blue seat. The main hesitation I have with this one is that I don’t know what kind of Dem infrastructure exists out there to take advantage of the conditions. Aycock never faced much of a challenge though he won in 2012 by the skinny-for-this-gerrymandering margin of 57.5% to 42.5%, partly because that district is off the beaten path for Dems and partly (I suspect) out of respect for Aycock, who was a really good Public Ed committee chair. If even one of these seats flip, I’d assume all four of the ones in the level above did, so we’ll increment the county to 59.

Now we’re starting to get into some unfamiliar territory. HD47 is the lone Republican district in Travis County. Dems captured it in the wave of 2008 then lost it in the wave of 2010, and it was shored up as a genuine Republican district in 2011, with the side effect of making HDs 48 and 50 more solidly blue. HD108 is in the Highland Park part of Dallas, so who knows, maybe Donald Trump was the last straw for some of those folks. I’ve talked a few times about how HDs 135 and 132 were the two red districts in Harris County trended bluer from 2008 to 2012; I don’t expect it to go all the way, but I’ll be shocked if there isn’t some decent progress made. HD52 was won by a Dem in 2008 but was drawn to be more Republican in 2011. HD136, like HD52 in Williamson County, was a new district in 2012 and has been represented by a crazy person since then. HD65 is in Collin County, and HD85 is primarily in Fort Bend. Winning any of these would help tamp down the narrative that Dems are only creatures of the urban counties and the border.

If somehow Dems won all of these districts – which won’t happen, but go with it for a minute – the caucus would be at 73 members, which needless to say would have a seismic effect on the 2017 session and Dan Patrick’s ambitions. Putting the number above 60 would be a very nice accomplishment given all that’s stacked against such a thing happening, though it’s hard to say how much effect that might have on the session. Note that I have not put any Senate races in here. This is not because the Senate has a more diabolical gerrymander than the House does, but because the four most purple Senate districts – SDs 09, 10, 16, and 17 – were all up in 2014, and thus not on the ballot this year. You can bet I’ll be looking at their numbers once we have them.

There are a few districts that I would have included if there had been a Dem running in them (specifically, HDs 32, 45, and 132), and there are a few with numbers similar to those in the bottom group that I didn’t go with for whatever the reason. Tell me which districts you’ll be looking out for tomorrow. I’ll have a companion piece to this on Tuesday.

• HD-54. State Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, R-Killeen, decided not to seek reelection in a district where Republicans have only a narrow advantage over Democrats in presidential election years like this one. Killeen Mayor Scott Cosper apparently won the Republican runoff, but his 43-vote margin over Austin Ruiz has prompted a recount. The winner will face Democrat Sandra Blankenship in November.

• HD-78. State Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, will contend with Jeffrey Lane, a Republican in a district where Democrats have demonstrated a slight advantage.

• HD-107. State Rep. Ken Sheets, R-Dallas, has fended off a series of challenges in his narrowly Republican district; this time, the chief opponent is Democrat Victoria Neave.

• HD-113. Like Sheets in the district next door, state Rep. Cindy Burkett, R-Sunnyvale, has a district where the incumbent is always under attack. Her Democratic opponent this time is Rhetta Andrews Bowers.

• HD-117. State Rep. Rick Galindo, R-San Antonio, is one of two House Republicans defending a district where Democrats generally win statewide races. He’ll face the guy he beat, former Rep. Philip Cortez, a Democrat, in November.

• HD-118. The other of those Republicans is John Luhan, also of San Antonio, who won a special election earlier this year to replace Democrat Joe Farias, who retired. He’ll face Democrat Tomás Uresti — the loser of that special election — in a November rematch.

• HD-144. State Rep. Gilbert Peña, R-Pasadena, represents a district that has gone for Republicans in some years and Democrats in others. And it’s another rematch: He will face former Rep. Mary Ann Perez, the Democrat who lost in 2014 by 152 votes out of 11,878 cast.

Several incumbents got free passes in districts where an able opponent might have been dangerous. In HD-34, state Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, drew no Republican challenger. In HD-45, Republican Jason Isaac didn’t draw a Democratic opponent.

That’s a pretty comprehensive list. Because I like numbers, I went and dug up the 2012 district results so you can get some idea of how steep a hill these are to climb for the Democrats:

“Diff” is just the difference between the Romney and Obama totals. “Boost” is my way of quantifying how wide that gap really is. It’s the ratio of the Diff to the Obama total, which put another way is how big a turnout boost Democrats would need in 2016 over 2012 to match the Republican total. That doesn’t take into account any other factors, of course, it’s just intended as a bit of context. Note that for HDs 78 (where Obama won by more than ten points in 2012), 117, 118, and 144, Democrats already had a majority of the vote in 2012, so in theory all that is needed is to hold serve. Individual candidates matter as well, of course, though in 2012 there was literally only on State House race in which the winner was not from the party whose Presidential candidate carried the district, that being then-Rep. Craig Eiland in HD23. Point being, you can swim against the tide but it’s a lot more challenging to do so these days. I went and added a couple more races to the list that the Trib put together just for completeness and a sense of how big the difference is between the top tier and the next tier. I don’t have a point to make beyond this, I’m just noting all this for the record.

State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer says he laments nothing about a failed gambit for the state Senate that will end his 16-year stint with the Texas Legislature.

The boisterous San Antonio Democrat, however, is leaving office at the end of the year with a message: Don’t write off his political career just yet.

“Last time I checked this wasn’t a retirement party,” Martinez Fischer, 45, said in an interview. “I don’t want anybody to misconstrue my words to think this is my political obituary.”

[…]

Experts say they expect to see Martinez Fischer back in action and point to possible scenarios for another run at a high-profile public office, potentially Bexar County Commissioners Court or U.S. Congress. But, they note, the right opportunity would have to present itself, requiring in most cases for an incumbent to move on.

Two seats on the Commissioners Court could present options, he said: Precinct 2 Commissioner Paul Elizondo, 80, is up for re-election in 2018 and hasn’t said what he plans to do. Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff, 74, also hasn’t committed to another term.

Archer said running for either spot on the Commissioners Court would make perfect sense for Martinez Fischer.

“It keeps you home in San Antonio. It also comes with real check. And there’s a lot of power,” he said. “I would think that Trey would have to look at running for county commissioner or county judge if it were available.”

But Archer noted that Elizondo and Wolff are powerful and entrenched incumbents and would have to decide against running to make it feasible for Martinez Fischer.

Another scenario political observers are floating involves Martinez Fischer running to succeed U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, if he were tapped for a role in a potential Hillary Clinton White House or if he makes a run for another office in the near future.

There are some obvious parallels to Adrian Garcia here, as TMF lost a bruising primary against an incumbent after being in what was essentially another primary, one that was just as bruising, last year. The first order of business is to patch up damaged relationships and get everyone to remember why they liked him in the first place, and the best way to do that is to go all out to help Democrats win up and down the ballot this year. In Bexar County, that means working to retake HDs 117 and 118, and the Dems there have a Sheriff’s office to win as well. His old colleague Pete Gallego could use some help winning back CD23 as well. Do those things, with enthusiasm and visibility, and the potential possibilities become more possible. Like Garcia, TMF is a young man, so he could take a cycle or two off if he wants or needs to, and still be in good shape. We will miss having TMF in the Lege, but I feel confident that he has more good to do, and I look forward to supporting him in that again when the time is right.

The turnover of Bexar County’s Democratic legislative caucus continues apace. With the departures in 2015 of Mike Villarreal and Jose Menendez (succeeded by Diego Bernal and Ina Minjarez, respectively) and the departures this year by Joe Farias, Trey Martinez-Fischer, and Ruth Jones McClendon, there will be a whole lot of Bexar County legislators being sworn in on January 2, 2017 that weren’t there two years before. The Rivard Report takes a look at the three candidates who hope to succeed TMF in HD116.

Rep. Trey Martinez-Fischer

Diana Arévalo, Martin Golando and Ruby Resendez are not exactly household names in San Antonio, but all three candidates are hoping past political training or staff experience propel them into elected office. The primary winner – or May 24 runoff winner if a second round of voting is necessary – will run unopposed on the Nov. 8 General Election ballot and be sworn into office in January.

[…]

A Jefferson High School graduate, Arévalo served on the San Antonio Youth Commission and became involved with student government while attending college. She majored in business, earning a bachelor’s degree at UTSA and a master’s degree from Our Lady of the Lake University. As an undergraduate, Arévalo was a fellow at the United Leaders Institute for Political Service at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and she attended the Women’s Campaign School at Yale University.

She worked as an intern in U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy’s office, and at the Obama White House in the Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs. She parlayed these and other experiences into a chance to work with the 2012 Democratic National Convention Committee, and on President Obama’s 2013 inaugural committee.

Back home, Arévalo has served as secretary of the Bexar County Democratic Party, and currently chairs the 2016 Texas Democratic Convention Host Committee. Her party work led to an opportunity to manage the 2013 City Council campaign of Leticia Ozuna, who finished second in a three way-race won by Rebecca Viagran. Arévalo said she learned a lot from the experience that she now is applying in her own campaign.

[…]

Golando, 38, is a native Midwesterner who has called San Antonio home for 17 years. He earned his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law and is a partner in the downtown law firm Garza Golando Moran, specializing in election and civil rights laws. Golando has the most direct connection to Martinez Fischer. He has worked for him for 10 years, including time as his chief of staff. Galindo said he focused on water policy, taxation and legislative procedure.

Golando has served for two years as general counsel for the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, the nation’s oldest and largest Latino legislative caucus, and he has served as a co-counsel during the hotly contested Texas redistricting case and all challenges to the Texas Voter ID law. In 2013, Golando was briefly in the national spotlight. In the wake of the legislative redistricting fight that began in 2011, Golando requested repayment from the state of more than $282,000 in legal fees he said he incurred while helping the caucus in its legal battle.

The state’s Attorney General’s office, then under Greg Abbott’s leadership, said Golando was ineligible for repayment because of his dual employment. Golando has kept up the legal battle, and the case is still active.

[…]

Resendez is the first graduate of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s program to prepare young Latinas for public service who is seeking elected office, which led to this recent story on the Rivard Report.

“People want to have good, high-quality, high-paying jobs. People also want to make sure senior citizens’ needs are met,” Resendez said she has learned in her district campaigning. “There are good ideas in the community. We’re getting out onto the streets to help find solutions to conflicts in our neighborhoods.”

Meanwhile, the Express News provides a glimpse of the six candidates running to succeed McClendon in HD120.

On the Democrats’ March 1 ballot — listed in the following order — are Lou Miller, Latronda Darnell, Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, Art Hall, Mario Salas and Byron Miller.

[…]

Lou Miller, an insurance agent and district governor for Rotary International who served on the city zoning commission and the VIA Transit board, said he knows “how to get things done even as a non-elected official,” having helped lure a planned health clinic to the East Side.

He said he’d continue McClendon’s push to build a state office complex near downtown, a $135 million proposal that was approved by lawmakers in 2015 but vetoed by Abbott as too costly.

Darnell, a former legislative staffer to McClendon, said social justice issues are an overriding concern, along with improving education. Having served in the Legislature, she said she already has working relationships with key lawmakers and state officials, and her experience there taught her that “what happens in Austin happens to you.”

Working for McClendon, who had served District 120 since 1996, Darnell said she learned that “to serve 120 means to be engaged with this community.” And while candidates may have great ideas, change won’t happen if a lawmaker doesn’t have good rapport with other leaders.

Gervin-Hawkins, an educator who serves as executive director and superintendent of the George Gervin Youth Center, cited education as her focus, including faith-based, non-profit and public schools.

Calling these “pivotal times,” she said “what’s needed in Austin right now is someone with diplomacy, strategic planning and the ability to make things happen.” Lamenting a disinterested electorate, she said “we’ve got to give people hope again.” And citing rivalries exposed by the campaign, Gervin-Hawkins said “it’s about how we work together. Let’s unify. ”

Hall, a Harvard grad who earned a law degree from Texas Tech, likewise said education would be his top concern. The attorney who served on City Council and works as a district director for Alamo Colleges, said he’s wants to apply the financial and international business acumen he gained in the private sector.

“We deserve good, strong leadership to carry on the legacy that Ruth Jones McClendon and many others have left behind,” Hall said. Citing his role as a minister, Hall departed from the rest by saying he doesn’t condone same-sex marriage.

Salas, an educator who served on City Council and the Judson ISD board, wants teachers to be treated better by the state, along with minorities and women.

“We need a fighter in that position and I intend to wind it up,” Salas said. He called attention to his long involvement in racial equality and social justice causes and touted his backing by teacher groups. In Austin, Salas said he’s ready to fight “this jaugernaut of right-wing extremism” that impacts immigration policy and other issues.

Byron Miller, an attorney and Edwards Aquifer Authority board member who served as a justice of the peace and on numerous community boards, said he’s determined to bring better treatment of veterans and the elderly, and he’s also an advocate for early childhood education.

Although the district continues to have problems with infrastructure and social justice, Byron Miller said “it’s getting better” and will continue doing so “if we work together.” He added: “I want to represent everyone, equally.”

Golando in HD116 and Miller in HD120 were endorsed by the Express-News in their primaries. I don’t know much about any of these people, so it’s good to get at least a few tidbits.

It’s worth noting that in 2012, there were eight Democrats elected to the Lege from Bexar County, out of ten total districts. Here’s what the delegation looked like then, and what happened to them since:

HD116 – Trey Martinez-Fischer. He ran in the special election for SD26 after Leticia Van de Putte stepped down to run for Mayor but lost in a runoff to Jose Menendez. This year, he chose to go for a rematch in SD26, thus leaving his seat open.

HD117 – Philip Cortez reclaimed a seat that had been held by David Leibowitz from 2004 through 2010 before losing it in the 2010 wipeout. Cortez then lost it in 2014, and is trying to win it back this year.

HS118 – Joe Farias. Elected in 2006 to succeed Carlos Uresti after his successful primary race against then-Sen. Frank Madla, Farias announced his retirement at the end of the last session. He vacated his seat shortly thereafter, and the remainder of his term was won in a special election runoff by a Republican. Two Democrats, both of whom vied for his seat in the special election, are fighting each other in the primary for the chance to win it back in November: Gabe (son of Joe) Farias, and Tomas (brother of Carlos) Uresti; the latter was the loser in the special election runoff.

HD119 – Roland Gutierrez is now the senior member of the delegation. He was elected in 2008 in an unopposed primary to succeed Robert Puente, who was one of the last Craddick Dems still in the Lege.

HD120 – As noted above, Ruth Jones McClendon has retired, and resigned her seat. A special election to fill the remainder of her term will be held in May.

HD123 – Mike Villarreal. He stepped down after winning re-election in 2014 so he could run for Mayor of San Antonio. Diego Bernal won that seat in a January special election.

HD124 – Jose Menendez was the winner for SD26 last year, which then created a vacancy for his seat. Ina Minjarez won that in an April runoff.

HD125 – Justin Rodriguez is now the second longest-serving Democrat in Bexar County. He won the primary for that seat after Joaquin Castro moved up to Congress.

Whew. Lots of changes, with more to come. Good luck sorting it all out, Bexar County.

State Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon, a San Antonio Democrat and 19-year veteran of the Texas House who tenaciously championed social justice reform, said Wednesday that she is not running for re-election.

McClendon was elected in 1996 to represent East Side voters in House District 120 and has emerged as a fixture in the Legislature as the dean of the Bexar County delegation.

However, McClendon’s health has been an ongoing concern. She was diagnosed in 2009 with stage 4 lung cancer and underwent surgery to remove water from her brain last year.

Her fragile physical state was emphasized during the latest legislative session when she relied on an electric scooter to navigate the Capitol and had noticeable trouble speaking.

In a statement, McClendon said she plans to stay in office until her term expires in December 2016 but that “it is time for someone else to take up the mantle.”

“Although I will not return to the Legislature in 2017,” she said, “I will still be engaged to ensure that the issues I have fought for will have a voice.”

[…]

McClendon has possibly become best known for her quest to have the state study wrongful prison convictions. She achieved the long-time goal during the last legislative session to create a commission to study exonerations, a triumph that helped earn her recognition from Texas Monthly as one of 2015’s best lawmakers.

Lawmakers said McClendon’s presence will be missed.

“Ruth is not only the dean of our delegation, she’s also our Capitol mother. Knowing that she’s not coming back is something that’s going to be hard to overcome,” said state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, a San Antonio Democrat. “She’s always been the leader of our delegation, but now its time for her to make sure she’s taking care of her health and her family.”

All respect to Rep. McClendon, who has battled health issues for several years but went out on a high note this session with the passage of that exoneration commission bill. Go read the story at the end of that post linked above; if it doesn’t make you at least a little misty, you might want to adjust your meds. Her departure means that the ten-member Bexar County House delegation will have at least four members who were not there this past January – Rep. Diego Bernal, the successor to Mike Villarreal, who resigned to run for Mayor; Rep. Ina Minjarez, who won a special election for the seat vacated by now-Sen. Jose Rodriguez; and whoever follows the retiring Reps. McClendon and Joe Farias. If the Dems win back HD117 in this Presidential-turnout year, that will be half of the delegation turned over. Getting some new blood is always good, but losing such distinguished veterans is hard. I wish Rep. McClendon all the best as she enters the next phase of her life. The Trib has more.

When Donna Howard of Austin won a seat in the Texas House in 2006, she was the only white woman among Democrats in the state Legislature.

Over time, several others joined her briefly. But four elections later, Howard will once again be the only white woman among Democrats in the Legislature.

After the winners of Tuesday’s elections are sworn in, 63 of the 181 seats — 31 senators and 150 representatives — will be held by Democrats. Seven will be white. In contrast, Republicans will hold 118 seats. Only eight of them are minorities.

The tally of white Democrats in the Texas Legislature has been decreasing at a time when the legislative redistricting process and the state’s changing demographics have fueled the relative rise of minority winners from Democratic districts. The party has been trying to broaden its voting base, in part by mobilizing Hispanic supporters and attracting politically unaffiliated Texans.

But some Texas Democrats worry that the loss of white lawmakers could complicate efforts to attract independent voters if they are unable to argue that they represent all Texans, including Anglos.

[…]

Texas Democrats acknowledge that Republicans have been particularly successful in defeating white Democrats in rural districts.

Republicans have focused on white Democrats in a “very calculated” way “because they wanted to push this idea that the Democratic Party was just about minorities, which is not true,” said Jim Dunnam of Waco, a former representative who lost his seat to a Republican in 2010.

Political analysts said Democrats have been losing in rural areas because they are easier targets. Jerry Polinard, a political-science professor at the University of Texas-Pan American, said Republicans have focused on capturing districts with a majority of white residents, lightly redrawing district lines to favor their candidates.

Districts made up largely of minorities, which tend to lean Democratic, are not easily redrawn without inciting legal challenges, Polinard said.

“Obviously, in terms of the demographics of voting, Republicans pull much more strongly from the white vote,” Polinard said. Historically, minorities in Texas tend to vote Democratic.

Craig Murphy, a longtime Republican consultant, said white Democrats in rural areas became “inherently weak” when Republicans realized that they voted along party lines in the Legislature but went back to their Republican-leaning districts and pretended to be conservative.

“They were just very vulnerable incumbents,” Murphy said. “Many of them should not have had the right expectations to survive.”

But he brushed off the idea that Republicans were attempting to marginalize minority voters. The party was focused on winning as many seats as it could, he said.

I began this piece before Thanksgiving, and procrastinated long enough for the Statesman to write more or less the same piece this past Sunday. I covered a lot of this ground two years ago when there were 11 Anglo Dems in the Lege. What I said then is largely true now. There remain opportunities for Dems to reverse this trend a little – the three Dallas districts 105, 107, and 113, plus 136 in Williamson County are all potential targets for Anglo Dems in 2016. Beyond that lie the suburban counties, where if Texas’ electoral makeup ever changes Democratic gains will have to occur. No guarantees, obviously, and any gains made in 2016 could be balanced by retirements and/or primary challenges elsewhere, or wiped out in 2018. But it’s hardly hopeless.

I should note that of the 98 GOP-held districts right now, all but 5 are majority Anglo according to the 2008-2012 ACS report. Two of those five – HDs 117 and 144 – I’d expect to revert back to the Dems in 2016; they may flip again in 2018, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. The two ways that a Democrat could win in one or more of these other districts is 1) altering racial mix of the electorate, either via demographic change or better turnout efforts; a lot of these districts are between 50 and 55% Anglo, so it wouldn’t take much; and 2) doing better among white voters. I’m not sure which will be the greater challenge, but those are the choices. Fortunately, they’re not mutually exclusive.

You wonder if Dems have hit bottom in how little support they can get from Anglos, which is probably in the mid 20s right now, or if there are further depths to plumb. There’s no way to avoid the fact that this happened while Barack Obama was President – Republicans were certainly fervent in their opposition to Bill Clinton, but race wasn’t the factor it is now. This has led to some speculation that things could turn around at least a little with Hillary Clinton on the ballot, and hopefully in the White House.

The top minds in the proto-Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign infrastructure are already gaming out Electoral College scenarios. What they think they have is a candidate who could compete in a handful of traditionally red states, putting Republicans on the defensive and increasing her chances of winning the White House.

Mitch Stewart, Obama’s 2012 battleground state director who is now an independent consultant advising the grassroots group Ready for Hillary, laid out the electoral math to TPM in a recent interview. Clinton will start with Obama’s map, he said, and can build from there.

There are two buckets of states potentially in play. Arkansas, Indiana and Missouri comprise one bucket. The first is a somewhat unique case, given Clinton’s history there, while the other two were razor-thin in 2008, but the principle is the same: Clinton has a record of appealing to white working-class voters — especially women — and they could be enough when paired with the Obama coalition to pull out a win.

“Where I think Secretary Clinton has more appeal than any other Democrat looking at running is that with white working-class voters, she does have a connection,” Stewart said. “I think she’s best positioned to open those states.”

[…]

“I think Hillary Clinton can be a temporary salve to Democrats’ fading chances with white voters, primarily because she will attract women,” Carter Eskew, a top adviser to Al Gore’s 2000 campaign, told TPM. “If she supplements her gender appeal with a real contrast on the economy, then all the better.”

That will be key, Stewart agreed. Clinton has already been testing a 2016 message that heavily emphasizes wage growth and expanding the middle class. That’s how she’ll attract those voters that could bring these additional states into reach.

“For whatever reason, Democrats have not been able to articulate a message that resonates even though our economic values align with that working-class family’s economic values,” Stewart said. “It’s something that we have to figure out.”

It is not a universally shared opinion, however. Mother Jones’s Kevin Drum outlined why Democratic struggles with the white working class have become so ingrained in recent years. Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, sounded skeptical when asked by TPM about Clinton’s ability to break through with that population.

“It’s possible, but I’ll believe it when I see it,” he said in an email. “The hardening of party lines during the Bush and Obama years make switches more difficult unless they are propelled purely by demographic shifts.”

Texas isn’t explicitly mentioned in this analysis, but if Dems do better with white voters in places like Arkansas and Missouri, one would expect them to improve by some amount here as well. It’s a nice thought, if you believe it to be possible. I for one am old enough to remember when a Hillary Clinton candidacy in 2008 was going to be the death of Democrats in Texas, because she got Republicans so riled up. I argued at the time that any Democrat would have that effect, and I think I’ve been proven right. Things are different now – there’s less ticket-splitting, for one thing, and I just feel like a lot of attitudes have hardened. I believe, or at least I want to believe, there could be something to this. I’ll need to see some polling data, and to hear the idea floated seriously by someone other than a member of Team Hillary.

So here’s a crazy idea. Rather than judge Battleground Texas by our own beliefs about how things should have gone, what say we take a look at the actual numbers of a few races and see what they tell us? In particular, let’s look at the numbers in the Blue Star Project races, which were legislative elections in which BGTX engaged directly. There was SD10 and eight State House races; I’m going to throw in CD23 as well even though BGTX did not specifically get involved there. I’m going to compare the performance of the Democratic candidates with those of Bill White, since everyone is obsessing about the White numbers even though about 15% of his vote total came from Republicans, and with Lt. Gov. candidate Linda Chavez-Thompson, since I believe her totals are a more accurate reflection of what the base Democratic turnout was in 2010. Here’s what I’ve got:

It’s a mixed bag. The best performances came from Libby Willis in SD10 and Phillip Cortez (one of two incumbents on BGTX’s list) in HD117. Both exceeded White’s totals and far surpassed Chavez-Thompson’s. This is partly a reflection of what happened in Tarrant and Bexar Counties, respectively. In Tarrant, not only did Wendy Davis beat Bill White’s numbers in her backyard, so too did Leticia Van de Putte and Sam Houston, with Mike Collier just behind. White and Van de Putte were the only ones to carry Bexar for the Dems, with VdP being the high scorer, but Davis came close to White’s number and downballot Dems improved by about 20,000 votes. Willis and Cortez both beat the spread, but not by enough.

Gallego, who again was not directly assisted by BGTX, and the four Dallas County candidates all fell short of White but exceeded, in some cases by a lot, Chavez-Thompson. As I said above, I think topping LCT’s totals represents an improvement in base turnout from 2010, and again that’s consistent with what we saw in Dallas overall, as White was the standard-bearer while the top four Dems all surpassed Chavez-Thompson. Gallego did about as well in Bexar as Ciro Rodriguez did in 2010, and there’s no one place where he did worse, though he could have used more turnout in Maverick County.

The other three results are just bad. Turncoat Dem Lozano carried Jim Wells and Kleberg counties even as all the statewide Dems won in Jim Wells and most of them carried Kleberg despite generally losing it in 2010. Davis didn’t win Kleberg, and she scored lower in Jim Wells than several other Dems. That may have been a contributing factor, but on the whole it was fairly marginal. Still, that needs to be understood more fully, and someone needs to come up with a strategy to keep Dems from crossing over for Lozano if we want to make that seat competitive again.

Criss had a tough assignment, as HD23 has been trending away as places like Friendswood have made Galveston County and that district more Republican. Unlike the other two Dem-held State Rep seats that were lost, HD23 isn’t going to flip to “lean Dem” in 2016. Turnout by both parties was down in HD23 from 2010, and it’s probably the case that White was a boost there four years ago. Better turnout could have gotten her closer, but Susan Criss was always going to have to persuade some Rs to support her to win. I will be very interested to see what the Legislative Council report on this one looks like when it comes out.

The loss by Mary Ann Perez was the worst of the bunch, partly because it looked like she was up in early voting and partly because Harris was alone among the five largest counties in not improving Dem turnout. You can ding BGTX or whoever you like as much as you want for the latter, but the candidate herself has to take some responsibility, too. Winning this seat back needs to be a priority in 2016, and making sure it stays won needs to be a bigger priority after that.

So like I said, a mixed bag. The 2010 numbers were pretty brutal overall in these districts, and where there were improvements it was encouraging, and offers hope for 2016. Where there wasn’t improvement was disappointing, and needs to be examined thoroughly to understand what happened. I’d give the project a final grade of C – there’s some promise going forward and some lessons to be learned, but while improvements are nice, results are necessary.

– Let me begin by saying that for all the criticism I had of the UT/Texas Trib’s polling and the skepticism of Internet-sample methodology, they were fairly accurate in the end. In particular, the last YouGov result just about nailed it. I still think what they do is more alchemy than anything else, and their subsample results often look ridiculous, but however they did it, they got it right and they deserve credit for it.

– I’m sure we’re about to be deluged with critical stories about Battleground Texas and public doubts about their future viability – the Trib and the Observer are already on it – but I have to ask, given the way this election went nationally, why they are more deserving of scorn than anyone else. In particular, how did they do any worse than the DCCC, DSCC, and DGA? The DSCC’s fabled “Bannock Street Project”, which was supposed to save the Senate by increasing Democratic turnout in battleground states, was a spectacular dud. Democratic candidates for Governor lost in such deep red states as Illinois and Maryland. Hell, the chair of the DGA, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, who pooped on Wendy Davis’ campaign a few months ago, failed to get a majority of the votes in his own election. BGTX doesn’t have much to brag about today, and I have no doubt they could have done plenty of things better. But I know a lot of people – friends of mine – who worked their tails off for BGTX and the Davis campaign, and I will not demean the work they did. If you want to criticize them, go right ahead, but please be specific about your complaints. I’m not going to pay attention to any generalized rants.

– Davis didn’t come close to matching Bill White’s vote total, and no statewide Dem reached 40% of the vote. That’s the harsh truth, and there’s no sugarcoating it. The funny thing is, though, for all the talk about turnout being down, it wasn’t actually Democratic turnout that was down. Here’s a comparison of the vote totals for the Democrats running for the top four offices over the last four non-Presidential cycles:

Davis didn’t peel crossover votes away from Abbott the way White did from Rick Perry, but beyond that I don’t see a step back. If anything, it’s an inch or two forward, though of course that still leaves a thousand miles to go. Where turnout did decline was on the Republican side. Greg Abbott received about 360,000 fewer votes than he did in 2010. Given the whipping that Republicans were laying on Dems across the country, one might wonder how it is they didn’t do any better than they did here.

One thing I’m seeing, and I’ll have more to say about this tomorrow, is that some people seem to think that because Davis got about 265K fewer votes than Bill White that means that overall Democratic turnout was down by that amount. In a word, this is baloney. White drew the votes of some 300K people that otherwise voted Republican. Their presence in his tally was nice for him, and would have been critical in a different year, but they had nothing to do with Democratic turnout. I am at a loss for why people are making that claim, and why they are overlooking or ignoring the gains in the races just below the Governor’s race, where a coordinated turnout effort would have an effect. Like I said, more about this tomorrow.

– Harris County wasn’t any prettier than the state was, and here in Harris there were declines in the vote totals of both parties. I’ve been looking at the statewide results more closely to see where the gains and losses were, and my initial impression is that the other big counties did move forward in ways Harris did not. The mail program was a success, but it seems clear that it mostly shifted behavior. If there was a net gain, in terms of votes we wouldn’t have had at all without the mail program, it means that in person turnout efforts were that much less successful. If we’re going to be introspective, that’s the place to start.

– All that said, if I’m newly-elected Harris County DA Devon Anderson, I’d take a few minutes to be concerned about the fact that I have to be on the ballot again in 2016. Consider this: By my calculation, the average Republican judicial candidate who had a Democratic opponent received 359,759 votes. The average Dem judicial candidate got 297,311. Anderson received 354,098 while Kim Ogg got 311,094. To put it another way, Ogg got crossover votes, which stands both her and Anderson in contrast to Pat Lykos in 2008 and Mike Anderson in 2012. Frankly, if she’s up for it, I’d tell Kim Ogg to keep running and start fundraising now for 2016. Assuming the patterns from the last two Presidential years hold here, she’d have a real shot at it.

– Along the same lines, of the five legislative seats the Dems lost (three in the House, one each in Congress and the Senate), HDs 117 and 144 should flip back in 2016, and if I were Pete Gallego I’d keep running for CD23 as well. (If he doesn’t want to run any more, allow me to be the first to hop on the Mary González bandwagon.) If Susan Criss can’t win HD23, which had been trending red for some time, I doubt anyone can. As for SD10, it’s not up again till 2018, but for the record, Libby Willis basically hit the Bill White number, which suggests she drew a non-trivial number of crossovers. Someone ought to take another crack at that one next time around but bear in mind this was always going to be a tough hold. I strongly suspect that if Wendy Davis had decided to run for re-election instead that we’d still be mourning her defeat.

– One prize Dems did claim was knocking off longtime Bexar County DA Susan Reed. Republicans claimed a victory over DA Craig Watkins in Dallas, where he was his own worst enemy. I refer you to Grits for more on that.

– Other results of interest: You already know about the Denton fracking ban. The Katy and Lone Star College bond initiatives passed. Austin Council Member Council Member Mike Martinez and attorney Steve Adler are in a runoff for Mayor; other Council race results, the first single member district elections in Austin, are here. And finally, Old Town Tomball repealed its ban on alcohol sales. Pour one out, y’all.

– Finally, a word on the matter of the efficacy of campaign ads, in particular negative ads. Yesterday morning after we dropped off the kids at school, Tiffany mentioned to me that Olivia’s understanding of the Governor’s race was that if Abbott won, there would be more standardized tests, which did not please her. “He wants to test four-year-olds!” she said. “That’s just wack!” I will simply note that at no time this year did I ever discuss the Abbott and Davis pre-k plans with her, and leave it at that.

I’m not talking about her biological family. Davis is getting support from a group of female House candidates who are piggybacking on her policy proposals and helping her take aim at Republicans, including Greg Abbott, the attorney general and GOP nominee for governor.

Last week, for instance, Davis proposed the elimination of the statute of limitations in rape crimes. Quickly afterward, four House candidates, all women, issued news releases backing the state senator’s proposal.

They included House District 108 candidate Leigh Bailey, House District 105 candidate Susan Motley, House District 23 candidate Susan Criss in Galveston and House District 43 hopeful Kim Gonzalez in Kingsville.

There’s political strategy to the “we are family” approach.

Democrats across the state are running as a team in hopes of encouraging straight-ticket votes that will not only help Davis, but down-ballot candidates.

In Dallas County, for instance, County Judge Clay Jenkins and District Attorney Craig Watkins hope to benefit from a base voter turnout.

They will work with local campaigns, Davis and groups like Battleground Texas, a Democratic group that aims to make the state competitive long-term.

In previous years, Democratic House candidates have had to largely fend for themselves, since many of them are stuck in districts drawn to benefit Republican candidates.

A countywide mobilizing helps them, but it has fallen short for many, as the Democratic base is outside their individual districts.

But this year, with Battleground Texas helping, the candidates are using issues seen as important to women — equal pay, early childhood education, and health care, for instance — to go after more voters.

If Davis manages to woo crossover voters, so will the House candidates. That’s the theory.

“What unites all these campaigns, from Wendy on down the ballot, is that they’re fighting for Texas families instead of insiders,” Jenn Brown, executive director of Battleground Texas, said.

That approach, which I agree is something we haven’t really seen before despite the obvious benefit of it, is actually broader than what Jeffers documents. BOR wrote about BGTX’s Blue Star Project, from which all this comes. Here’s a list of candidates that BGTX has highlighted on their site, some with videos, so far:

That list is not final – Battleground says they are seeking opportunities to get involved where they think they can make a difference. You can’t be everywhere at once, and resources are always finite, but it’s great to see this kind of strategic thinking. In places like SD10 and HD23, two Republican-leaning districts that Democrats currently hold, it could be the difference between winning and losing. In marginally Republican districts like HD43 and the four Dallas locations, it could be the difference between gaining seats and keeping the status quo. That’s all about increasing turnout, which is something everyone wants and which should be very conducive to joint efforts like this. Again, we could certainly find that BGTX did a stellar job boosting Democratic base turnout but still fell short at the state level. Where a gap exists in these districts, however, it’s much smaller. Keep an eye on this, and if you live in or near one of those districts, you now have twice as many reasons to get involved.

In the House, nine Republican and two Democratic races are still undecided. An early list of competitive November races — this is in a House with 150 seats — comes in under a dozen. Put another way, there are about as many competitive races in the party runoffs as in the November general election.

In the Senate, there are only two runoffs — both in the Republican primaries. And in November, only the SD-10 seat — now held by Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth — looks from this distance like a genuinely competitive two-party contest.

The 36-member congressional ballot is just as imbalanced, with three runoffs (all Republican) next month and only one obviously competitive November race, in the 23rd Congressional District, where freshman Democrat Pete Gallego of Alpine is the incumbent. Democrats are starting to talk hopefully about the chances for Wesley Craig Reed, the challenger to U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi. That district, CD-27, was drawn to favor Republicans, however, and part of Reed’s challenge will be to overcome that advantage in a midterm election year with an unpopular Democratic president in office.

That’s the problem for challengers with these maps: Barring the unexpected — scandal, death, resignations that come too late for candidates to be replaced — most races will be over by the end of next month, if they aren’t over already.

Those are most of the caveats, along with the usual one: It’s early, and things will change. All that said, here is an early list of House races to watch in November, mostly because they are in the handful of swing districts that remain on the map.

HD-105: Republican state Rep. Linda Harper-Brown of Irving lost her primary to former Rep. Rodney Anderson of Grand Prairie in March. He’ll face Libertarian W. Carl Spiller and the winner of a Democratic runoff in a district where both major parties think a win is possible.

HD-149: Rep. Hubert Vo, D-Houston, is being challenged by Republican Al Hoang in a district that Vo has managed to defend — narrowly — several times.

Keeping score? That list includes four seats currently held by Republicans that the Democrats would like to take away, and five Democratic seats that the Republicans hope to grab. At the extremes, that would mean the Texas House would convene with 91 to 100 Republicans and 50 to 59 Democrats in January 2015 — about where it is today.

I’ll stipulate that once the runoffs are settled, so too are the vast majority of legislative races. There’s always the possibility of a surprise, as the story notes, but barring anything unforeseen, all the action this year will be statewide and in the counties. That’s just not what the pattern has been over the past decade, but it’s a testament to the power of the 2011 redistricting. I suspect it’s one part access to more accurate data and more powerful computers, and one part more rapid demographic change in various districts last decade, but right now these maps have the feel of permanence, barring court-mandated changes, until 2021.

I’ve got another post in the works to illustrate that in greater detail, but for now let’s look a little closer at the list Ross Ramsey compiled. I agree with the four competitive Republican seats, and while I agree that these are the five most competitive Democratic seats that are being contested – for some reason, the GOP did not field a candidate in HD78 – I don’t think they’re all in the same class. HD23, which along with SD10 and CD23 are the only seats won by one party while being carried by the other party’s Presidential candidate, is clearly a possible R pickup. I’d rate it as Tossup, possibly Tossup/Lean R. It’s tough for the Dems that Rep. Craig Eiland chose to retire, but District Court Judge Susan Criss is as strong a candidate to succeed him as one could want. As for the others, I’d rate HD41 as the least likely of all nine to flip. Rep. Guerra won with over 61% of the vote in 2012. While some statewide Republicans won a majority in 2010 in HD41, one doesn’t usually identify an incumbent that collected over 61% of the vote in his last election as potentially vulnerable. I’d rate this seat as Likely D. Rep. Cortez in HD117 might be the most endangered Dem incumbent – he won with a bit more than 52% in 2012 – but his opponent had almost no cash on hand going into the primary, not that he was a moneybags himself. Let’s call this one Lean D – for comparison, I’d rate all four Republican seats as Lean R. Rep. Perez won with over 54% in 2012 – her district performed better for Ds in 2012 than the 2008 numbers would have suggested – and her opponent this year was the lesser-regarded loser of the 2012 R primary. I’ve not heard a peep about that race. I guess a bad enough year for Dems overall could imperil her, but I’m calling this one Likely D.

Finally, there’s HD149. On paper, Rep. Vo versus former CM Hoang is an intriguing matchup. The history in HD149 is Rep. Vo outperforming the Democratic baseline – in both 2006 and 2010, he was the only Dem other than Bill White in 2010 to win the district, and 2006 was redder than 2010 – aided in part by a strong Vietnamese vote. Having Hoang on the ballot at least potentially complicates that, especially since his Council victory in 2009 was fueled in part by a strong performance in Asian boxes. However, as I’ve shown before, lots more people have had the opportunity to vote for Rep. Vo than for Hoang, the district is more Democratic now than before – Rep. Vo’s only close re-election was in 2010 with 52%; he had over 56% in 2012 – and I’d fear Hoang more if he hadn’t just lost a re-election bid to an out-of-nowhere Vietnamese candidate whose victory was abetted in large part by Hoang’s stormy relationship with the Vietnamese community. This is one to watch, but barring any future indicators of trouble for Rep. Vo, I’m calling this one Likely D. What are your thoughts?

Though the data isn’t yet posted on individual members’ webpages, I have gotten a copy of the 2012 election results by State Rep district, for which there was much rejoicing. The first question of interest is how much the 2008 results resembled the 2012 results in each district. I went by vote percentages as reported – that is, including third-party candidates – and compared Mitt Romney’s 2012 percentage in each district to John McCain’s 2008 percentage, and Obama 2012 to Obama 2008. I did this by taking the ratio of the 2012 percentage to the 2008 percentage. Statewide, Romney was three percent better than McCain – i.e., the ratio of Romney’s percentage (57.16) to McCain’s (55.45) is 1.03 – and 2012 Obama (41.38) was five percent worse than 2008 Obama (43.68), for a ratio of 0.95. If the difference were uniformly distributed around the state, you would expect Romney to have a 1.03 ratio in every district, and 2012 Obama to have a 0.95 ratio. Obviously, that didn’t happen, so I was interested in the places where each candidate did the best compared to 2008. Here’s a look at them:

There were a number of other districts in which Romney ran at least five percent better than McCain – remember, that’s 5%, not five percentage points – but I’m really only interested in the reasonably competitive ones. Rep. Craig Eiland is the only member of the House to win a district that was not carried by his party’s Presidential candidate; I’m pretty sure Sen. Wendy Davis can say the same thing for her chamber, but I don’t have those numbers just yet. The only other Democratic district represented above is Rep. Donna Howard’s HD48, though it wasn’t enough of a difference to be worrisome to her. That chart has a lot of good news for the Republicans, since it contains a number of their least-safe seats. Many of these seats will still be hotly contested in 2014 – where else are Democrats going to go to add to their delegation? – but the GOP starts out with a bigger cushion than they might have expected.

And here are the districts of interest that were more Democratic in 2012:

Again, I excluded the non-competitive seats. As above, mostly good news for Dems and their least-safe members, Eiland excluded. In two HDs where Democratic challengers ousted Republican incumbents (HDs 34 and 117), plus the open HD144, Dems had an easier time of it than you would have thought. There’s also some hope for pickups in 2014 or beyond, mostly with the three Dallas County seats.

Looking ahead to 2014, here are your “swing” districts, for some value of the term “swing”.

Again, note that no one but Eiland won in a hostile district. Turncoat Republican JM Lozano gets partial credit for Michelle Petty’s plurality vote in HD43, but that’s at least partly a function of the unusually high Libertarian vote in that race, which generally suppressed Nathan Hecht’s percentages. Note how much more Hecht diverges from Romney than Petty does from Obama to see what I mean. Without factoring possible turnout differences into account, Dems have maybe six viable flip opportunities – Lozano, four Dallas seats, and HD54 – while the GOP has one clear shot and two other good ones. That’s assuming no further changes to the map, which may or may not be a good bet. Beyond that, we’ll have to see what the march of demographic change looks like and whether there’s anything to all this talk about investing in Texas Democratic infrastructure.

As I type this there are still a number of unsettled races in Texas, so things may change between now and tomorrow morning after we’ve all had an insufficient night’s sleep. But here’s how they stand at this time, and I will use my what I’ll be looking for post as a jumping off point.

Sen. Wendy Davis

First and foremost, State Sen. Wendy Davis was re-elected in SD10. I can’t begin to tell you how big that is. She was by far the Republicans’ biggest target this year, and she was again running in a district draw to favor a Republican candidate, this time without a Libertarian in the race to potentially draw votes away from her opponent. Yet she prevailed, riding an Election Day majority to a come-from-behind win, and thrusting herself squarely into the conversation for a statewide run at some point. Now the Democrats are assured of at least 11 Senate seats no matter how long it takes Rick Perry to call the special election to succeed the late Sen. Mario Gallegos, who also won, albeit much more easily. Again, this is huge.

As of this writing, Nick Lampson is trailing in CD14 by about 19,000 votes, with most of Galveston County still to report. I don’t know if he can win based on that. He fell short of the 60% he needed in Jefferson County that he supposedly needed, pulling 58.3% there. However, the Texas Tribune has called CD23 for Pete Gallego, who is leading by 6000 votes with only a handful of what are likely to be mostly friendly precincts still outstanding. Congrats to Rep.-Elect Pete Gallego!

It looks like Dems will exactly hit the target of +7 seats in the House for a total of 55. In addition to the three they won by default, they are leading in or have won HDs 34 (Abel Herrero), 78 (Joe Moody), 117 (Phillip Cortez), and 144 (Mary Ann Perez), while Rep. Craig Eiland has 53% with most of Galveston still out. Basically, Dems won four of the five districts in which they were the majority votegetters in most races in 2008, the exception being HD43, where turncoat Rep. JM Lozano appears to have held on. Sadly, Ann Johnson lost, but Gene Wu and Hubert Vo won easily.

Dems have picked up a seat on the SBOE as well, as Martha Dominguez has ousted Charlie Garza in SBOE1, while Marisa Perez won easily in SBOE3 and Ruben Cortez has held Mary Helen Berlanga’s seat in SBOE2. Considering what a massive clusterfsck this looked like after the Democratic primary, it’s a damn miracle.

With all but nine precincts reporting in Harris County, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. First, here’s the Presidential vote for Harris County as of this time:

Romney – 579,068
Obama – 579,070

Yes, Obama is leading Romney in Harris County by TWO VOTES. Good thing no one will call for a recount of that. The good news is that downballot Vince Ryan, Adrian Garcia, and Diane Trautman are all winning, while Mike Anderson has bested Lloyd Oliver. Sadly, Ann Harris Bennett appears to have fallen short by about 2400 votes. Fourteen of 20 Democratic judges won, while all five sitting Republican judges won, making the score 14-11 Dems overall.

Fort Bend County remained Republican. Obama will lose by a larger margin this time than in 2008 – he’s below 41% as I write this, but there are still 2000 precincts statewide to report. Given that, Keith Hampton never had a chance against Sharon Keller, but what is really disappointing is that he didn’t finish any closer to her than Obama did to Romney. However much newspaper endorsements meant in 2006, they meant squat to Keith Hampton. All of the Harris County-based appeals court candidates lost by about 10 points each. Incumbent Dem Diane Hanson lost on the Third Court, thanks in part to a peculiarly miniscule turnout in Travis County, but Dems knocked off three incumbent judges on the Fourth Court of Appeals.

Finally, all of the bond measures passed easily, as did the two Houston charter amendments and the Metro referendum. Dave Martin was elected to replace Mike Sullivan in Council District E with no runoff needed. Julian Castro’s pre-k referendum won. Marriage equality was victorious in Maine and Maryland, with Washington still out, and an anti-marriage equality referendum was narrowly losing in Minnesota. And Colorado legalized pot. Smoke ’em if you got ’em.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll have more later, including a bonanza of precinct analyses once I get the data. Thank you and good night.

UPDATE: Rep. Eiland did win, as did the other Democratic legislative candidates I mentioned, so it’s +7 in the House. Nick Lampson did lose, so it’s +1 for the Dems in Congress.

Texas Parent PAC is delighted to endorse the following candidates in the general election. They are men and women of integrity, open and responsive to parents, actively involved in their communities, and committed to investing in public education to achieve economic prosperity in Texas.

Please vote for these endorsed candidates and encourage your friends and family to vote as well! Early Voting is October 22 – November 2 and Election Day is Tuesday, November 6.

Read about the endorsement process here. To find out your district number for State Senator and State Representative, look on your voter registration card or enter your address on the “Who Represents Me?” section at the Capitol web site.

Texas Parent PAC is a bipartisan political action committee. In the 2012 Texas primary and general elections, the PAC has endorsed 28 Republicans and 25 Democrats.

Here was their slate from the primaries, and an accounting of who won among those candidates. You may notice that there are four candidates that were endorsed in the GOP primary that are not on this list – Cecil Bell (HD02), Chris Peddie (HD09), Trent Ashby (HD57), and Jason Villalba (HD114). The first three have no Democratic opponents and are therefore for all intents and purposes already elected. As for Villalba, I asked Carolyn Boyle about that race, and received this response:

From the beginning, Jason was a “primary only endorsement” because Texas Parent PAC had endorsed Carol Kent in the past and she is great. Jason agreed that once the primary was over he would delete any reference to the Parent PAC endorsement for the primary, and the PAC did as well. It was important to defeat Bill Keffer in the primary, and Jason is a supporter of public education. We are staying out of the general election with Jason vs. Carol…let the voters decide, as both will advocate for public education.

So there you have it. As I did with the primary, I’ll check the scoreboard for Parent PAC after the election is over.

– I don’t think I’ve ever seen a greater disparity in amount raised and cash on hand as we see here with Donna Campbell. Campbell, of course, had a runoff to win on July 31, which covers the first month of this filing period, and a cursory perusal of her detailed report shows the vast majority of the action was in July, as you’d expect. I’d still have thought she’d collect more cash after the runoff, since she’s a heavy favorite to win in November. Assuming she does win, we’ll need to check out her January report from 2013.

– Overall, the Republicans have done a very good job of raising money to protect their vulnerable incumbents. The main exception to this is John Garza in HD117, though he still leads his opponent, Phillip Cortez. The difference between Rs and Ds on amount spent is a lot smaller, which may indicate that their strategy is to do a late blitz, or it may mean they’re just sitting on a lot of cash.

– Turncoat Rep. JM Lozano initially filed a report with almost no cash raised and no expenses listed. Apparently, he “forgot” over $250K in contributions. That total includes $100K from Associated Republicans of Texas, almost $68K from Texans for Lawsuit Reform, $25K from Texas Republican Representatives Campaign Fund, $6K from the Texas House Leadership Fund, $15K from Bob Perry, and just for good measure, $2K from Koch Industries. Hey, I’d want to forget about all that, too. Here’s his current corrected report; there may be another to come.

– After a somewhat anemic July report, Rep. Sarah Davis kicked into overdrive for this period. Ann Johnson, who has an ad I’ve seen a few times on the Headline News Network, did a pretty good job keeping pace, and still has a cash on hand advantage. I presume Davis has some ads running as well, since she got a $100K in kind contributions from Texans for Lawsuit Reform for TV advertising, but I have not seen any such ads myself. She also collected $100K total from Associated Republicans of Texas ($65K) and Texas Republican Representatives Campaign Fund ($35K), plus $20K from Bob Perry.

– Mary Ann Perez had the next most impressive haul after Ann Johnson, showing some very strong numbers for that open swing seat. I presume her strategy is the do a late push as well, given the cash she has on hand. And given the money they’ve sloshed around to so many other candidates, I’m surprised David Pineda hasn’t been the beneficiary of a few wads of dough from the usual suspects. We’ll see what his 8 day report looks like.

– If your eyes bugged out at Dianne Williams’ totals in HD149, I assure you that mine did as well. A closer look at her detailed report shows that nearly $115K of her total came from one person, a Mrs. Kathaleen Wall. Another $5K or so was in kind from various Republican PACs. Take all that out and her haul is much less impressive. The money is hers to spend, of course, it’s just not indicative of some broad-based support.

Yes, Democrats will pick up seats in the Lege this election. The question is how many seats.

Texas political experts expect Democrats will gain at least seven House seats.

“If the Democrats don’t get to 55 seats or more, the party has committed malpractice,” said GOP campaign consultant Eric Bearse.

Most of the competitive legislative races feature state House races. The lone state Senate seat in play involves a Fort Worth area district with Democratic incumbent Sen. Wendy Davis battling Republican state Rep. Mark Shelton. The GOP holds 19 of the Senate’s 31 seats.

Changing demographics should help Democrats narrow the gap in coming years, but GOP-directed redistricting last year created only about a dozen swing House districts this fall.

“It was not possible with the most skillful and artful redistricting effort to protect 102 seats, which includes two party switchers in South Texas and two in East Texas,” Bearse said. “It’s not 2010. The floodwaters only rise so high every once in awhile.”

[…]

Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, a member of Texas Republican Representatives Campaign Committee, estimates his party will lose between seven and nine seats.

“Some people are more optimistic than that,” he said. “It depends on who turns out, the 2008 (pro-Democrat) group or the 2010 (pro-Republican) group.”

The four toughest seats for GOP incumbents to keep, according to Larson are: Rep. Connie Scott of Corpus Christi, Rep. J.M. Lozano of Kingsville, Rep. Dee Margo of El Paso and Rep. John Garza of San Antonio. All won their seats in 2010. Scott, Lozano and Margo each face a former Democratic House member. Scott and Margo face the same opponents they defeated in 2010. Lozano flipped from Democrat to Republican last year.

[…]

Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, chairman of the House Mexican American Legislative Caucus, believes Democrats will gain between seven and 14 House seats next month.

He also expects more Hispanics to win House seats in the 2014 election, which will again have new boundaries.

“Artful” and “skillful” are two words that can describe the redistricting effort. “Illegal” and “discriminatory” also work. I did my own analysis on this last month. Note that I miscounted the Democratic caucus – I thought it was 47 after Rep. Lozano’s switch, not 48, so add one to my totals where appropriate. Given that the Dems have already effectively picked up three seats, I think seven is a fair minimum, and I concur with Rep. Larson’s assessment of the most vulnerable incumbents. Fourteen is a bit of a stretch, but ten is a reasonably optimistic goal. As Rep. Martinez-Fischer notes, there will be other opportunities in 2014 when the next map is in place.

There’s not much to add to this. The numbers are what they are, though as I’ve noted elsewhere, continued population growth and demographic change may result in some surprises. Two additional things to note. First, as much as the numbers can tell us, there is still the matter of issues:

Carolyn Boyle, founder and chairman of the pro-public education Texas Parent PAC, said the public education funding issue has generated considerable enthusiasm among the organization’s financial donors.

“Candidates who are canvassing (neighborhoods) are telling us it’s the top issue as they go door-to-door talking to people,” Boyle said.

Democrats would certainly like this election to be as much about education as possible. The success Democrats had in 2006 and 2008 in picking up Republican-held seats was due in large part to then-Speaker Craddick’s hostility to public education. Opposition to vouchers drove a lot of that, too, though apparently no one told Dan Patrick about that. Be that as it may, the Trib had a story a couple of weeks back about GOP freshmen touting their pro-education credentials on the campaign trail. It may not be till the 2014 election for the full effect of this to be felt, but I’m happy to be fighting on that turf in the meantime.

Second:

Democrats also hope to win back the seat of Rep. Sarah Davis, R-Houston. The freshman lawmaker defeated Democrat incumbent Ellen Cohen two years ago by 701 votes out of more than 51,000 ballots. Davis now faces a challenge from attorney Ann Johnson in one of the districts fairly high on the Democrats’ target list.

Bearse, who is working for Davis, is counting on her to prevail.

“She is a perfect fit for her district. She has an independent streak as wide as Texas,” Bearse said. “Those Republicans who vote their district and show some independence should win if they raise money and get their message out.”

The numbers make Rep. Davis a favorite to be re-elected, so much so that it’s rather surprising and a bit telling to see her “moderate” bona fides being touted. I’ll agree that Davis is a “moderate” in tone, by which I mean she’s too smart to say anything as obnoxiously ignorant as Debbie Riddle or Leo Berman are wont to do. But I would challenge Eric Bearse to name two bills of substance other than the sonogram bill on which Davis voted against her party. I can’t think of any. She voted for the House budget bill, which would have cut $10 billion from public education, she voted to cut family planning funding and to de-fund Planned Parenthood, and she voted for the “sanctuary cities” bill. In short, she was a loyal Republican. You’d think someone running in a 55%+ GOP district wouldn’t feel the need to talk that much about their “independence”.

The long-awaited ruling in the preclearance lawsuit by the DC Court has been handed down, and it’s a clean sweep for those who claimed that the new maps violated the law.

Texas lawmakers didn’t comply with the Voting Rights Act when they drew new maps for congressional, state Senate and state House districts, a federal court in Washington, D.C., ruled Tuesday.

“Texas … seeks from this court a declaratory judgement that its redistricting plans will neither have ‘the purpose nor will have the effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race or color, or [language minority group]”, the judges wrote. “We conclude that Texas has failed to show that any of the redistricting plans merits preclearance.”

[…]

The court wasn’t ruling on interim maps drawn by federal judges — the maps in use for the current election — but on those drawn by state lawmakers last year. Lawyers are still looking through the opinions for anything that might disrupt the current elections.

Nina Perales, litigation director for MALDEF — the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund — said there might not be time to draw new maps before the November elections even if they’re warranted. One question is whether problems exposed in the plans drawn by legislators “infected” the plans drawn by the federal judges in San Antonio. “I don’t think it’s feasible to change the lines for November,” she said. Perales called the federal court ruling “the final nail in the coffin” for the plans drawn by state lawmakers, especially since the San Antonio judges outlined several other legal problems with those same maps earlier this year.

The outcome of Abbott’s appeal and the analyses being done by the various parties in the redistricting legislation will determine which lines, if any, get redrawn before the 2014 elections.

Some have made up their minds. “The question of whether we’ll go back to the district court and ask for additional relief, the answer is yes,” said Jose Garza, attorney for the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. “Will we ask if this will be implemented for the November elections? We’re still analyzing that.”

[…]

“We conclude that Texas has not met its burden to show that the U.S. Congressional and State House Plans will not have a retrogressive effect, and that the U.S. Congressional and State Senate Plans were not enacted with discriminatory purpose,” the judges said in their opinion. “Accordingly, we deny Texas declaratory relief. Texas has failed to carry its burden that Plans C185, S148, and H283 do not have the purpose or effect of denying or abridging the right to vote on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group under section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.”

You can read the full opinion here, and I encourage you to do so, at least through the conclusion on page 72. There’s a lot of other analysis out there, and I’ll link to it later in this post, but these are the highlights as I see them:

– The opinion was unanimous on all points except for whether the original CD25 (the districts that were in place for elections through 2010 are referred to as “benchmark” districts, while the ones in the state redistricting plans are “enacted”) qualified as a coalition district, i.e., one in which minorities had the ability to elect a candidate of their choice, and on whether the overall Congressional map was retrogressive. The San Antonio court, by contrast, ruled 2-1 in the suit that led to the creation of the interim districts that were later tossed out.

– The court found evidence of discriminatory intent in the Congressional and Senate maps. The latter is significant because they did not find that SD10, the only district at issue in that map, met the criteria for being a coalition district. Further, note that the Justice Department did not specifically contest the Senate map – the other intervenors did – meaning that in this case the state got a harsher result than the would have by going to the Justice Department for preclearance instead of filing the lawsuit with the DC Court as they chose to do.

– The court did not specifically rule on the issue of discriminatory intent in the House map because they ruled it to be retrogressive. However, they did make the following remarkable comment about the House map and how it was drawn:

First, the process for drawing the House Plan showed little attention to, training on, or concern for the VRA. See, e.g., Trial Tr. 61:1-66:23, Jan. 20, 2012 PM. And despite the dramatic population growth in the State’s Hispanic population that was concentrated primarily in three geographic areas, Texas failed to create any new minority ability districts among 150 relatively small House districts.

These concerns are exacerbated by the evidence we received about the process that led to enacted HD 117. As detailed above, the mapdrawers modified HD 117 so that it would elect the Anglo-preferred candidate yet would look like a Hispanic ability district on paper. They accomplished this by switching high-turnout for low-turnout Hispanic voters, hoping to keep the SSVR level just high enough to pass muster under the VRA while changing the district into one that performed for Anglo voters. This testimony is concerning because it shows a deliberate, race-conscious method to manipulate not simply the Democratic vote but, more specifically, the Hispanic vote.

Finally, the incredible testimony of the lead House mapdrawer reinforces evidence suggesting mapdrawers cracked VTDs along racial lines to dilute minority voting power. Texas made Interiano’s testimony the cornerstone of its case on purpose in the House Plan. Trial Tr. 45:22-25, Jan. 17, 2012 AM (“[O]ur [discriminatory purpose] case rests largely on the credibility of one person. His name is Gerardo Interiano.”). Interiano spent close to a thousand hours — the equivalent of six months of full-time work — training on the computer program Texas used for redistricting, id. at 131:3-5, yet testified that he did not know about the program’s help function, id. at 85:18-25, Jan. 25, 2012 PM, or of its capability to display racial data at the census block level, id. at 93:13-19, Jan. 17, 2012 PM. As unequivocally demonstrated at trial, this information was readily apparent to even a casual user, let alone one as experienced as Interiano. See id. at 93:1-15; id. at 88:5-89:17, Jan. 25, 2012 PM. The implausibility of Interiano’s professed ignorance of these functions suggests that Texas had something to hide in the way it used racial data to draw district lines. The data about which Interiano claimed ignorance could have allowed him to split voting precincts along racial (but not political) lines in precisely the manner the United States and the Intervenors allege occurred.

This and other record evidence may support a finding of discriminatory purpose in enacting the State House Plan. Although we need not reach this issue, at minimum, the full record strongly suggests that the retrogressive effect we have found may not have been accidental.

Ouch. That starts on page 70, if you’re curious. The reason why the rulings on discriminatory intent are important is explained by Rick Hasen:

The evidence of discriminatory intent is important not just for the likelihood that the Supreme Court will affirm this decision even if it disagrees on some aspects of the retrogression standard. It also serves as some evidence which could be used to argue, in the Shelby County case or elsewhere, that covered jurisdictions still discriminate on the basis of race in making voting-related decisions. (If this was not done to Anglo Democrats, the evidence is even stronger than if it could be explained on the basis of pure partisanship.) The Court was careful to note that Texas did not challenge the constitutionality of section 5 in this case. And the Court rejected a number of Texas’s arguments that it should read section 5 narrowly to avoid a constitutional question. Whether the Supreme Court will agree with the district court on this point is anyone’s guess. Indeed, this case could be mooted if the Supreme Court strikes down Section 5 (in the Shelby County case or another) before the Court decides this case on the merits.

No question that the Republicans treated Sen. Wendy Davis shabbily, but they really stuck it to the three African-American members of Congress. Read the excerpt Hasen highlights to see what I mean. Indeed, read the whole opinion, it’s worth your time. The justices really slap around the state’s main expert, Professor John Alford, and they note repeatedly that the state often simply refused to respond to various arguments made by the intervenors and the Justice Department. It’s quite the bravura performance.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has taken the position that the opinion will not affect the November election, which he says will proceed on the interim maps put into place back in February.

On the other hand, it is certainly possible to see a move to adjust those interim maps in the San Antonio court. For example, CD-23 arguably could be restored to its full benchmark configuration fairly easily. Similar arguments might also be made with respect to HD 117 and 149, which are wholly contained in their respective counties (to the extent redistricting plaintiffs think that not enough changes were made to those districts in the interim maps).

Other changes would seem harder. But with control of Congress potentially on the line, lots of people are going to be looking at the opinion closely over the next few days.

Changes for this year – at least conceptually – are not out of the question. In 1996, for example, the three-judge panel ordered jungle primaries in a number of congressional districts which were held on the date of the November election, with a runoff a month later.

Some of the intervenors are leaning in that direction, as you saw in the Trib story. AG Abbott will appeal to the Supreme Court, which may or may not have an effect on that. He’s also seeking to gut the Voting Rights Act in the process, as Hasen alluded to above. On a side note, we may also get a ruling in the Voter ID preclearance case, since it would need to be precleared by August 31 to be able to be implemented this year.

UPDATE: Here’s more from SCOTUS Blog, which reminds me that the opinion also repeatedly hammered on Texas’ long history of losing redistricting lawsuits. Texas Redistricting has a roundup of other links.

The organization also announced that two of their major donors have pledged to match up to $75,000 in contributions to kick off the “Back to Blue” effort.

“The HDCC has a proven track record of helping Democratic House candidates win,” said state Representative and HDCC Board Member Jessica Farrar, “Our mission is to turn Texas House seats blue and with these candidates on our team in 2012, we will be successful.

“Thanks to our generous contributors, we have an incredible opportunity to double down and raise the money needed to win these seats,” continued Farrar.

In addition to organizational assistance, staff support, and message training, candidates targeted by the HDCC will receive financial support.

“My campaign has knocked on over 25,000 doors in Dallas County and from the conversations I’ve had with voters, I know that Democrats are on the right side of the issues. We continue to support our neighborhood schools, fight to protect women’s health and stand up to Republican lawmakers who chose not to play by the rules,” said Robert Miklos. “I know that with the HDCC’s support, the hard work of my campaign team, and the generous help of those who care about the future of our state, I will win on Election Day.”

“I am proud to have the support of the Texas HDCC and to be recognized as a ‘Back to Blue’ candidate. This shows our hard work in Houston is paying off,” said Ann Johnson. “Our voters and the people we’ve talked to don’t want politics as usual. They want someone they can count on and will be held accountable for the promises they make.”

See here for more; the HDCC is also on Facebook and Twitter. In addition to those nine, they have a five-member second tier, and three incumbents they’ve identified as in need of some protection – Reps. Craig Eiland, Joe Farias, and Hubert Vo. The five B-listers are Robert Stem (HD12), John Adams (HD45), Dora Olivo (HD85, another former member), Rich Hancock (HD102), and Matt Stilwell (HD136). I’m a numbers guy, so here are some numbers:

Electoral data can be found here; look in the RED206 for the relevant information. The “others of interest” are my own selections. The two starred seats are open D seats; HD41 was Veronica Gonzales and HD74 was Pete Gallego.

Democrats are going to pick up three seats by default: HDs 35, 40, and 101. The former two were left open by Reps. Aliseda and Pena, the latter is a new district in Tarrant County. Strictly by the numbers, I’d classify HDs 34 and 78 are Democratic Favored; HD117 as Lean Democratic; HDs 43 and 144 as Tossup; HDs 105 and 107 as Lean Republican; and HDs 114 and 134 as Republican Favored. There are plenty of other factors to consider – candidate quality, fundraising, demographic change since 2008, etc – but let’s stick with just the numbers for now. Let’s be optimistic and say Dems can pick up seven of these nine top tier seats and not lose any they currently hold; honestly, only Eiland would seem to be in real danger. That’s a ten-seat net, which with Lozano’s switch gets them to 57. Better, but still a long way to go. The map for 2012 is unlikely to expand beyond the indicated second tier, as not all of the “other districts” I’ve identified have Dems running in them.

Certainly it’s possible for things to go better for the Dems, but worse is also in play. You could imagine a true disaster in which they get nothing but the three gimmes and lose Eiland along the way for a net +2 and only 49 seats, or one more than they had in 2011. I don’t think that’s likely, but it’s not out of the question. The long-awaited ruling from the DC Court will almost certainly trigger a new map from the San Antonio court, and for all we know the Lege may take another crack at drawing a map. The original San Antonio Court interim map made a 60-member Dem caucus likely, with friendlier Dallas districts, a Dem-favored HD54, and a tossup HD26 in Fort Bend among the differences. All I can say at this point is that I don’t believe we should get too accustomed to this interim map.

All state results here. Best news of the night was Paul Sadler‘s easy win. Can we please raise some money for this guy?

Congressional results: James Cargas in CD07, Pete Gallego in CD23, Rose Meza Harrison in CD27, Marc Veasey in CD33, and Filemon Vela in CD34. I’m delighted that three quality members of the Texas Democratic legislative caucus will have a shot at serving in Congress next year. As for Filemon Vela, I’m still suspicious of the guy, but we’ll see how it goes.

In the Lege, Gene Wu had another strong showing in HD137, and I feel very good about his chances to win this Dem-favored-but-not-a-lock seat in November. Parent PAC didn’t have any skin in the runoffs, but Annie’s List did, and they went one for two, as Nicole Collier will succeed Veasey in HD95, but Tina Torres lost to Phillip Cortez for the nomination in HD117. That’s a critical race in November.

The biggest surprise of the night was also some good news, as Erica Lee romped to a huge win in the HCDE Position 6, Precinct 1 runoff. She won with close to 75% of the vote, so maybe, just maybe, that will be enough to convince anyone who might file another lawsuit that they’d be wasting their time. I truly hope this is the end of it, because this is by far the best possible outcome. Congrats to Erica Lee, to Alan Rosen in Constable Precinct 1, to Zerick Guinn in Constable Precinct 2, and to all the other winners last night. Onward to November, y’all.

The Department of Education has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to void the May primary and Tuesday’s runoff. Lee, Harris County and both political parties want to dismiss the case, which is ongoing.

Johnson said he had planned legal action on behalf of the 1,400 excluded voters whether he won the runoff or not.

“The whole point of this was to make sure the disenfranchised voters had a voice,” Johnson said.”

I guess it was too much to hope for otherwise.

UPDATE: When I went to bed last night, Zerick Guinn was leading by what I thought was a safe margin. Apparently, not safe enough as today Chris Diaz is shown as the winner by 3 votes. I smell a recount coming.

UPDATE: The plot thickens. Here’s the 10:12 PM update from the County Clerk website, which the last update I saw before I went to bed. See how Zerick Guinn has 2695 votes? Now here is the 12:43 AM update in which Guinn has mysteriously dropped to 2061 votes, which puts him behind Diaz and his 2064. How does that happen?

I wasn’t aware of the primaries in HDs 43 and 80. HD43 is held by turncoat Rep. JD Lozano and is yet another race featuring an Annie’s List candidate, former Rep. Yvonne Gonzalez Toureilles, who was defeated in HD35 in the 2010 tsunami. HD80 is held by Rep. Tracy King, and I don’t know if Jerry Garza is related to former Rep. Timo Garza, who defeated King in the 2002 primary and lost to him in 2004. It wouldn’t surprise me if he is, however. Carol Kent actually moved to HD114 – fellow former Rep. Robert Miklos is running in HD107 – and she is unopposed in that primary, so no 30 day report. Still no report visible for Efrain Valdez.

Efrain Valdez has a report that’s been filed but not posted. Carol Kent and Richie Butler only have January reports that I can see, while Don Parish has none. If I show a zero in the cash on hand column, it’s because that was either listed as zero or left blank by the campaign. In some cases, such as Terry Canales, it’s because the candidate mostly spent personal funds. In the case of Toni Rose, her cash on hand totals is as small as it is given her amounts raised and spent because most of her contributions are in kind from Annie’s List – basically, they paid most of her campaign expenses for this period.

Of the 12 races here, eight are for open seats: HDs 35 (GOPer Jose Aliseda was drawn into HD43 and chose to run for a local office instead); 40 (Aaron Pena, and good riddance); 74 (Pete Gallego); 75 (Chente Quintanilla); 95 (Marc Veasey); 101 (new district in Tarrant County); 110 (Barbara Mallory Caraway); and 125 (Joaquin Castro). Quintanilla is running for El Paso County Commissioner, the other Democrats are running for Congress. HDs 77 and 90 are challenges to incumbent Dems, and HDs 107 (Kenneth Sheets) and 117 (John Garza) are Republican-held seats.

Annie’s List is a prominent player in these races – they are backing Mary Gonzalez, Nicole Collier, Paula Hightower Pierson, Toni Rose, Carol Kent, and Tina Torres. Justin Rodriguez is endorsed by Texas Parent PAC and also by the AFL-CIO, as are Phillip Cortez, Collier, Lon Burnam, Terry Canales, Oscar Longoria, and two candidates in HD74, Robert Garza and Poncho Nevarez.

I can’t say I’ve followed these races closely, but the Trib has had some coverage of the contests in HD75, HD77, and HD101. For the El Paso race, the Lion Star Blog has been an invaluable resource; I wish there were something like that for San Antonio and Dallas/Fort Worth. BOR had a nice overview of the legislative races last week. The one other tidbit I’ll pass along is this DMN endorsement of HD110 candidate Larry Taylor, which contained this head-scratcher:

[Taylor] acknowledges that he voted for the GOP in the 2008 primary, which created a ruckus when aired during a recent candidate forum. Taylor noted that this was a somewhat popular choice for Democrats in 2008. He voted Democratic in the general election and he assures us that this is indeed where his political heart lies. A key party leader agrees.

I’m more tolerant than some of Dem candidates with GOP primary histories, but I’m hard pressed to think of a reason why any Dem would have voted in the GOP primary in 2008, of all years. The common “I had a friend in a judicial primary” trope is not on exhibit here, and it would have been somewhat ridiculous in Dallas County, where Dems have dominated the last three countywide elections. I have no idea why Taylor would claim that was a “somewhat popular choice for Democrats” in 2008; 2.8 million Democratic primary voters would demur. I don’t know Mr. Taylor and I don’t know how credible he sounds when he discusses this, all I know is that my jaw hit the table when I read that.

Anyway. That’s it for now with finance reports. Those of you who know more about these candidates than I do, please weigh in on them. Thanks!

Federal judges in San Antonio unveiled maps for the state’s congressional delegation and for the state House this afternoon, and they did it in time to allow the state to hold its delayed political primaries on May 29. The court also signed off on Senate plans agreed to earlier this month.

Here is a link to the Congressional map on the Texas Legislative Council’s redistricting website.

And here (courtesy of TxRedistricting.org) are links to the court’s orders on the three maps: Congress,House and Senate.

Barring appeals, these maps will be used for the 2012 elections. Below are the new maps. We’ll fill in details throughout the afternoon.

2008 election results for the State House are here and for Congress are here. See here and here for 2010 data; I am told that there will be more stuff uploaded to the TLC FTP site soon. By allaccounts I’ve seen, as well as my own two eyes, the maps are substantially the same as the Abbott maps, though at least in the Lege there are some differences – HD43 is more Republican, HDs 78, 80, 117, and 137 are more Democratic. I have not had the time to do a thorough examination, but if you start with Plan H303 (2008 data here) you’ll be pretty close. The good news is that HDs 137 and 149 in Harris County were restored, with HD136 going away; HD144 remains winnable by a Dem though GOP-leaning. Unfortunately, that means HD26 will retain its bizarre, GOP-friendly shape, modulo anything the DC court may do. As for Congress, Rep. Lloyd Doggett will run in the new CD35, though presumably not against Joaquin Castro, who (again presumably) will stick to the open CD20. What happens to Ciro Rodriguez and Sylvia Romo in CD35 – Rodriguez at one point was running in CD23 – remains to be seen. And all this assumes there are no further appeals. Which is no guarantee given that there’s something for everyone to complain about. But maybe, just maybe, we can now start planning for primaries. Next step is to re-open filing, and we’ll go from there. Hang on, it gets faster from here. BOR has more.

There was no primary information in the order, which is pretty thin. The parties have until Wednesday at 2:00pm to get primary deadline information to the court, so it will be forthcoming and it looks like a go for May 29th.

The Court adopted the Compromise map for the Congressional districts. Yes, that means that Travis is split five ways and Doggett currently lives in a Republican district or could move to a Hispanic majority Democrat district. It also means that there is a coalition district in the DFW area, however, it leans more toward Hispanics than African Americans. Could be a fight between Veasey and Alonzo – well, and a whole lot of people.

The Senate Map is the legislatively adopted map with the exception that SD 10 is the benchmark (Davis’ old seat) and a couple of precincts were moved to allow SD 9 to wrap around. Welcome Senator Birdwell to Tarrant County.

In the House, The Court went with the Compromise map, except that they did not split Nueces County (meaning Scott/Torres are paired and Hunter and Morrison are not), they accepted MALC’s version of Bexar County making Garza’s district more Hispanic and D, and made some changes to the compromise in Harris County between Murphy, S. Davis, Hochberg which may be to increase Hochberg’s Hispanic numbers, but I have not run those yet.

So there you have it.

UPDATE: One question answered, via the inbox:

Bexar County Tax Assessor Collector Sylvia Romo announced she will continue her campaign for Congress in the newly reconfigured Congressional District 35 following the release of new interim redistricting maps by a three-judge federal panel in San Antonio.

“I am pleased that the Federal Court has concluded its work and am ready to mount an aggressive campaign to bring new leadership to the citizens of Bexar, Travis, Caldwell, Comal, Guadalupe, and Hays Counties,” Romo said.

“We need leaders in Congress who will do more to ensure job creation in our area, act on the concerns of our veterans, and fight to protect Social Security and Medicare,” Romo continued. “We need a member of Congress who will go to Washington and do the serious work of the people in this district,” she said.

Your move, Ciro. Here’s the Chron story on the maps, which notes that the DC court could (among other things) put Doggett’s CD25 back together again. It would be for 2014 if that were to happen, and that’s assuming the Lege doesn’t take another bite at the apple in 2013. So yeah, my original predictions that this would all still be in flux through the 2016 election continues to hold.

Today, State Representative Marc Veasey announced his candidacy in the court ordered North Texas Congressional District 33. The new court-drawn district is heavily Democratic and encompasses nearly all of Veasey’s current state house district. Veasey led the fight to overturn the Republican-controlled redistricting plan and worked hard to make sure a new Congressional district is located North Texas.

“From early in this election cycle it became clear that North Texas should receive an additional Congressional district. I’ve been urged by friends and colleagues to run for the new District 33 to insure that working families have a voice in Congress. The new district overlaps almost all of my current House District and includes neighborhoods where I have many friends and supporters. I will be proud to stand with them and fight for them in the US House,” said Veasey.

The new district encompasses African American and Latino neighborhoods in Fort Worth and Dallas that overall were easily carried by President Obama in both the primary and general elections. Tarrant County voters made up 60 percent of the turnout in the 2008 and 2010 Democratic primaries. More importantly, Veasey’s current state house district (95) forms the Tarrant County base of this new Congressional district and accounts for over 30% of the expected primary turnout giving Veasey a significant edge in the race.

“I am honored to have a coalition of support within many neighborhood and civic associations and will work hard in Congress to fight for good paying jobs, access to healthcare and be an ally for President Obama. He needs strong support from new Members of Congress to help turn back Republicans who will stop at nothing to undermine the President on the key issues most important to us all.” Veasey said.

The Justice Department said late Friday that based on their preliminary investigation, a congressional redistricting map signed into law by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry appears to have been “adopted, at least in part, for the purpose of diminishing the ability of citizens of the United States, on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group, to elect their preferred candidates of choice to Congress.”

DOJ’s Civil Rights Division is specifically contesting the changes made to Texas Districts 23 and 27, which they say would not provide Hispanic citizens with the ability to elect candidates of their choice.

They say they need more information on the congressional plan to determine what the purpose of the redistricting plan was for sure. But the federal agency came out stronger against the state House of Representatives plan, which they flat out said “violates Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in that it was adopted, at least in part, for the purpose of diminishing the ability of citizens of the United States, on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group, to elect their preferred candidates of choice to the Texas House of Representatives.”

The State House districts that DOJ singled out were 33, 35, 41, 117, and 149. The other intervenors in the case – State Sen. Wendy Davis and State Rep. Marc Veasey; MALC; Greg Gonzales (I don’t know who that is); the Texas Legislative Black Caucus; the Texas Latino Redistricting Task Force; and the Texas State Conference of NAACP Branches – agreed with DOJ about all of these districts and added quite a few more of their own, with some detailed objections in Dallas, Tarrant, and Harris Counties, among others. A copy of the DOJ doc is here, and I recommend you read it – it’s not very long, and isn’t particularly legalistic. If nothing else, see why the state of Texas will likely never hire Dr. John Alford as an expert witness again, at least not while the Republicans are still in charge. Oral arguments are scheduled for November 2 on the state’s motion for summary judgment.

In a Friday letter officials wrote that they need to know more about how the state would alert voters to the changes to the law.

Federal officials also want a detailed description of when and where the state will make free identification certificates available, as well as specifics on how they will educated the public about when such certificates will be available.

Texas officials said that 605,576 residents do not have a Texas drivers license or photo ID card. DOJ wants to know how many of those residents without IDs have Spanish surnames.

You can read the response letter for the specifics. In this case, if the state answers the questions to DOJ’s satisfaction, preclearance will be granted. Postcards adds on:

State Rep. Patricia Harless, R-Spring, the House sponsor of the Voter ID measure, said she was not surprised with the Justice Department’s action.

“I think the questions they are asking are reasonable,” Harless said.

Harless added that the Texas Secretary of State’s office should be able to respond relatively quickly.

Once the Justice Department gets the response, it’ll have 60 days to review it — plenty of time before the March primary.

[…]

If the Justice Department denies pre-clearance, the state probably would sue the department and ask the court to overturn the denial, leading to a lengthy court case.

And if the department approves the measure, appeals from opponents likely would be filed.

In other words, expect litigation no matter what happens next. The Trib has more.

Two former San Antonio councilmen who left office this summer because of term limits are back in politics and gearing up for their first partisan campaigns for seats in the Texas Legislature.

Former Councilman Justin Rodriguez, a Democrat, officially announced his candidacy for the District 125 seat on Monday, though he’s been preparing for the race for a while. He’s seeking to replace Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, who is running for the newly created 35th Congressional District.

[…]

Making his first splash on the Democratic stage, Rodriguez has brought an attention-grabbing name with him. Henry B. Gonzalez III — the grandson of the first Hispanic congressman from Texas — will serve as Rodriguez’s campaign treasurer.

“What his grandfather did paved the way for guys like me,” Rodriguez said.

The former District 7 councilman will kick off a listening tour after Labor Day and has created a campaign website at www.justin125.com.

Councilman Philip Cortez is planning to take on incumbent Rep. John V. Garza, R-San Antonio. But he’ll likely have opponents in the primary race. Tomás Larralde, the executive director of the Hispanic Contractors Association de San Antonio, has already filed paperwork appointing his campaign treasurer.

Others are planning to run in the race as well, though Cortez and Larralde are the only two who have filed with the Texas Ethics Commission.

Castro’s seat is solid Dem, so the race Rodriguez has to win is the primary, if he gets a challenger. Garza’s seat is HD117, and even after redistricting it was won by every Dem on the ballot in 2008. It’s a must have. I’m still learning about these guys, so I’ll let things play out for awhile before I really think about which one I’d rather see take on Garza. I’m just glad to see the action.

On to the urban counties. I’m grouping these three together because there’s really only one opportunity in each, and none of them are truly “new”. But never mind that. Let’s look at some data.

Travis County

District: 47

Incumbent: Paul Workman (first elected in 2010)

County: Travis

Best 2008 Dem performance: Barack Obama, 44.75%

HD47 was the last of the Travis Republican seats from the 2001 redistricting to go blue, and by the skin of Donna Howard’s teeth the only one to fall back in the 2010 wave. Republicans might have tried to draw a 4-2 Dem map for Travis County, but that carried a significant risk of losing them both, as they did with their greedy 3-3 map in 2001. Leaving the map at 5-1 and shoring up their one incumbent was very doable, and with Obama outperforming the rest of the Dem ticket by three or more points, they did a good job of it. Assuming Workman doesn’t do anything stupid, he ought to be in decent shape for awhile. There’s a lot of growth in west and northwest Travis County, however, so there’s no guarantee the demographics or partisan mix of his district will remain the same. And as the lone Republican in the county (not counting the Congressionals, who are only using bits of Travis for their own purposes), he’ll always have a target on his back. He may make it through the decade, but he’s unlikely to have any easy races.

El Paso County

District: 78

Incumbent: Dee Margo (first elected in 2010)

County: El Paso

Best 2008 Dem performance: Sam Houston, 54.10%

Margo was another beneficiary of the 2010 wave, winning an otherwise Democratic-leaning seat in his third try for office; he lost to Eliot Shapleigh for SD29 in 2006, and to Joe Moody for this seat in 2008 to succeed the retiring Republican Pat Haggerty. Unlike Paul Workman in Travis County, there aren’t enough Republican voters in the vicinity to draw him a majority GOP district. Every Democrat carried HD78 in 2008, so barring anything unusual his tenure should be short. For sure, this is a top priority district for the Dems in 2012.

Bexar County

District: 117

Incumbent: John Garza (first elected in 2010)

County: Bexar

Best 2008 Dem performance: Linda Yanez, 54.10%

Another wave beneficiary who can’t be adequately protected. Democrat David Leibowitz won this seat in 2004, knocking off now-SBOE member Ken Mercer, who had won the seat in 2002 against an indicted opponent. He had not faced any serious challenges and this race was certainly not on my radar last year. As with HD78, every downballot Dem carried this district in 2008, and I feel confident saying that it will be viewed as a must-win seat for the Dems next year.